This invention relates to carton constructions and in particular to carton constructions formed from corrugated cardboard blanks. The invention is particularly applicable to cartons of various sizes referred to in the trade as regular slotted cartons (RSC) and variations thereof. Such cartons are employed for packing and handling of goods and are produced from blanks which are cut into specified sizes and then folded into a flat configuration for storage and shipment.
In conventional RSC type cartons, prior to using it is necessary to manually assemble the carton. Such assembly includes the steps of opening the carton so as to form a rectangular configuration from the side panels, closing the bottom panels via stapling, tape or glue and finally loading the carton and sealing the top panels by a similar procedure. As will be appreciated, these steps require a good deal of manual labor and substantially increase the labor costs in such industries as fruit and vegetable packing, industrial shipment of material and supplies, and various other environments.
Accordingly, there has been a long-felt need to provide a corrugated carton construction which reduces the amount of manual labor required in order to assemble and load a carton. One method of accomplishing this reduction in setup time is to provide carton blanks that automatically set up and lock themselves into usable condition when the side panels are first separated to form the rectangular configuration. Such a construction is referred to in this specification as an "automatic setup carton". Examples of automatic setup cartons are disclosed in copending U.S. Pat. applications Ser. Nos. 299,375 and 454,356 assigned to the present assignee. So much of those descriptions as are necessary to an understanding of the present invention are incorporated herein by reference.
In addition to the above reference specifications, it has been known in the particle board industry to utilize automatic setup constructions for small non-corrugated boxes such as candy boxes, shoe boxes, hat boxes and the like. It has heretofore, been impractical, excessively expensive and technically unsatisfactory to produce an automatic setup construction for large corrugated containers.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to produce corrugated containers of the automatic setup type.
It is another object of the invention to provide automatic setup cartons with locking means.
It is another object of the invention to provide a tab and slot arrangement for the automatic setup cartons to lock them in the setup position for loading and transporting.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an automatic setup carton having a partitioning feature permitting the carton to be divided into a number of isolated cells.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a pair of automatic setup cartons which can fit one over the other to provide an assembled container formed and closed without any manual setup and sealing.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the concluding portion of the specification.